


Summoning

by NewYorkFly



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Godformers, Mass Suicide, Ritual Sacrifice, Suicide, Summoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewYorkFly/pseuds/NewYorkFly
Summary: Asking for a favor from only one aspect of a trinity can have... Unpleasant consequences.
Kudos: 6





	Summoning

**Author's Note:**

> Tristitas is Sunstreaker :D

“Is everyone ready?” the breathless mech asked, optics wild with excitement passing over the scene before him. A pyre was burning high up into the sky in the dead of nowhere, casting flickering, eerie shadows onto the scene under the dim light of the twin moons. A few of his followers were throwing more fuel into it to bolster the flames even further – they couldn’t afford for it grow too small, lest all of this be for naught. On an elevated slab of metal in front of the pyre sat a youngling with its creator, listening to its carrier’s stories while everyone made their final preparations around it. 

So long he’d waited for this, done everything he could to build up for this moment, and finally,  _ finally  _ they were on the precipice of doing the forbidden. They’d chosen this location with care, however. There would be no interruptions, he was sure of that.

“Yes,” said his second in command as the bustle began to slowly die down and everyone came to stand still around the sacrificial table, the fields around him filling with anticipation that he could understand and join in with his own joyous sense of  _ accomplishment _ .  _ Nothing  _ could be allowed to go wrong now; this would be done with precise perfection, just as their god would demand in his vanity. And oh, how he’d spent time getting to know the ins and outs of  _ Tristitas _ , to understand everything he could about that aspect of the trinity that had taken over his life.

He knew the dangers as well, of summoning only  _ one  _ aspect of the maligned trinity – as did his followers after the  vorns he’d spent coaching them for this, building their understanding of the things he’d lived for for so long – all to earn even a single favor, that  _ one  _ favor no one else would grant him. If this was the  one he had to turn to  to get it – by Primus, he would. Damn the priests and the gods who had denied him and forced him into this last resort.

“Let’s begin,” he spoke loudly enough to alert everyone. At once optics snapped to him, most of them yellow as his own in reverence to the one they were about to summon, and under their watch he walked over to the slab with the youngling and its carrier. He nodded to the creator, who held back his tears and nodded back before kissing their youngling on the helm and left to join the others as the spectators and witnesses they were.

Confusion was painted on the youngling’s face, such youthful ignorance, for despite his lifelong proximity to their sect, he had deliberately been kept in the dark. It was easier that way, when he couldn’t try to run away from the whole purpose of his existence.

He really would have to further express his gratitude to its carrier. He knew this couldn’t be easy. Oh how he knew this couldn’t be easy.

“Lay down for me, son,” he smiled to the youngling, who did as  ordered with such trust in his optics. Of course, they’d never given it reason to feel anything other than affection for them – never mistreated it in any way, merely helped its carrier care for it every step of the way. Its carrier, who had become such for no other reason than this ultimatum, proving their faith and loyalty beyond doubt.

The knife he pulled out from his subspace was held out of the sight of the youngling as he smiled soothingly down at it, petting its small helmet. The youngling clicked at him, confused but at ease.

Then, a quick strike, his features twisting into a grimace as he slit the youngling’s throat, nearly severing its helm from the rest of its body. There was a gush of  energon , a brief gurgle and fear in its optics before it lost consciousness.

He raised his knife again, only to strike down, down into the thinly armored chest, through all the protections into the shielded spark chamber. A burst of energy traveled up his arm, then the lax frame began to grey.

The carrier couldn’t contain their sob, but he ignored it as he cut the young chassis further to pull out the empty spark chamber with nothing but char from a snuffed spark on its insides. He lifted it for all of his followers to see, and a muted cheer rose up through their ranks.

But this wasn’t a happy event. Cheer had no place here, and they knew it, and quieted even as his spark swelled with triumph. So close was he to realizing the purpose for this.

He turned to the pyre, feeling its destructive heat against his whole front, reveling in this moment of calm before the storm and enjoying his last moments of peace. He knew he would never feel the same after what he was about to do – experiencing what they were all about to would be irreparable.

But if that was the price he had to pay, so be it.

“Tristitas!” he yelled over the crackle and roar of the fire, raising the empty spark chamber above his helm. “We call on you!”

And he threw it into the pyre.

At first, nothing, and he almost had the time to think this hadn’t worked, that this had all been in vain, that the old texts had lied and this was no way to get what he wanted, that this was all for  _ nothing  _ – but then the smoke began to thicken, turning blacker than it had any reason to be, the flames growing, growing,  _ growing _ into a tightly contained maelstrom. It felt like ages even though he knew it was only a matter of seconds for the smoke and fire to begin to take form, a reverberating sigh passing over the scene like a wind moments before yellow optics lit up in the pillar of obsidian smoke.

Instantaneously a deep grief overtook him, as he knew it did to all of his followers. A few burst out into wailing cries right there and then, and from the strength of his despair he wanted to join them. But this,  _ this  _ was what they had prepared for, and he most of all knew what they were getting themselves into – he couldn’t afford to show the weakness some of his  feebler followers did, not in front of the others and their very  _ god _ .

Words were stuck in his throat as he took in the slowly revealed splendor, the flames dimming to their natural strength and the smoke clearing to reveal the shape of a being beyond any of them in power. Everything had said that the god was beautiful enough to pain, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so real and... Physical. A black as dark as the smoke he’d formed from painted most of his frame, but golden accents took hold of so many places, gleaming in the light. Serpents, two of them, coiled around his frame in constant motion, shimmering as if they were nothing but a trick of light.

The beauty of the long abandoned sculptures representing him did his artful features no justice.

The god’s gaze passed over the scene, landing to the youngling frame bleeding out on the slab and then shifting over to the carrier, crying now, understandably. He expected the recent loss of his youngling could only contribute to the anguish that surrounded them like a physical weight.

Miasma of Woe, they called it. It surrounded the god, and only the presence of his twin aspect could dispel it –  _ balance  _ it. But they weren’t searching for balance, only a favor from  _ this  _ aspect, and to avoid any coalescence, this was the best way. The most dangerous, but the one with the highest chances of succeeding, and they all wanted  _ success  _ more than anything. 

“Innocent life taken,” Tristitas sighed, and the voice, he’d never heard anything more beautiful. No choir could do it justice. Wonder and reverence forced him onto his knees even as the god continued, gesturing at the scene with a flick of golden claws. “A mother’s grief. _Cruelty_.” Another otherworldly sigh, like a vacuum around him. Anguish pressed on him from all sides, ricocheting back to him with every rotation of his spark; his field joined the pain, pain, _pain_ that surrounded him from the others. Tristitas paid them no heed, merely locking his burning optics on _him_.

He almost withered under that gaze. “Why have you summoned me?”

It took three tries for his vocalizer to click into functionality without releasing his sobs. Somewhere to his right a wail louder than the rest was followed by the telltale flash of light that belonged only to a bared spark snuffed in that moment.

He’d prepared them all for this the best he could, but it looked as if not all of them could withstand it despite his best efforts. He would mourn their deaths – he would mourn them with the truest understanding of what mourning  _ felt  _ like, what it felt like to hurt so much you could scarcely find the will to continue on.

“ Tristitas ,” he gasped, fighting back the overbearing need to cry, to try to ease the pointless, directionless sorrow that grasped and squeezed his spark. “Our matron. Creation channels through you, and we all need that.” The reminder of his whole purpose for this finally forced a keen from his vocalizer, and he needed a moment to compose himself.  Tristitas waited, quiet and patient and taking no notice of the torture he was inflicting on them. How many would he need to perform funeral rites for after this?

He could only hope even a few of his followers would survive this. “Our mates, us, we cannot conceive. No one will help us. No one but  _ you,  _ I beg of you. We’ve tried for so long...” His voice broke, and all he could think of was his mate, waiting for him at home, safe and sound and with no idea what forbidden things he was partaking in, what the  _ cost  _ of all this was. And if it was up to him, he never would find out either – this would taint him forever, but it would all be worth it if their god granted them that  _ one  _ _ wish _ they had. To be able to  _ create _ . Was it too much to ask? How could everyone have denied them?

Grief, now his own joining that of the miasma, made him double over,  _ gasping  _ even for the ability to speak again, to continue.

Tristitas, the embodiment of sorrow, beat him to it. “I understand,” came the whisper behind him, but when he startled and glanced up, the god was still standing in the pyre like a fever dream. He didn’t smile, didn’t express sympathy – there was only emptiness on that face. He couldn’t in good conscience call it indifference, but it was... Neutrality the likes of which he doubted he would ever understand. An existence above the troubles of the mortals; he could only imagine what the world looked like to their patron, how – if at all – the death and grief he caused touched him.

“I see what you’re lacking,”  Tristitas spoke, quietly, and yet his voice managed to fill every nook and cranny of the scene of their sacrifice. “And I will give you what you covet.” His face turned to the carrier of their offering – crying his spark out, but alive, for now. “I will replace what  _ you  _ lost.”

He could hardly believe his  audials , even less so when the expected joy and relief... Didn’t come. The words only filled him with sorrow.

But this, too, he had known about. There existed no positivity in the grasp of this aspect, not without the  _ brother _ . This was what all the warnings had spoken of, why everything had cautioned him against this, reminded him time and time again that there was no happiness on this path.

Only despair.

He couldn’t see beyond it, couldn’t see beyond this moment – grief, misery, anguish, suffering in the deepest reaches of his spark, it filled him to the brim and  _ blinded  _ him. “Thank you,” he forced out, even though he could feel only the smallest flicker of gratitude, drowned under the tide of the deadly miasma.

What purpose did he have anymore? What reason did he have to continue? He’d achieved what he came for, a promise that the god they’d worshipped with such fervor would grant their wish, fulfill their desire. That was his purpose  _ completed _ . “We thank you, Tristitas.”

“Hm,” was all the god said. He could only watch as the ethereal figure stepped from the pyre, walking without a sound to the slab with the sacrificial youngling –  _ surveying  _ it with such detachment.

What had they done?  _ They  _ had done this. He glanced around, and oh, the amount of bodies. So many of his followers had already chosen to escape the unescapable agony. The ones that hadn’t were either laying on the ground as if dead, or wailing and cradling themselves in a valiant attempt to  _ withstand _ . 

Tristitas ran a digit through the mess of  energon from the slain youngling and lifted it for inspection. The serpents, barely holding their form, latched onto the raised digit and licked away the  energon until there was nothing but shining metal left. With strange gentleness he ran his other servo over the small helmet, stroking it almost thoughtfully

And he could only watch. The god they’d done all this for glanced around as if he was only just noticing the scene of  _ carnage  _ around him, and he couldn’t hold back his keen at the reminder of what had become of his followers. His  _ friends _ . They’d been tools to this end, certainly, but on the long run for this he had formed genuine attachments.

Now they were here, most of them dead by their very own hand.

Grief, misery, anguish,  _ suffering _ . He finally understood what those words  _ truly  _ meant. They meant  Tristitas and the rotten, damned miasma around him. They meant imbalance, ignorance of the natural order of things, an attempt at playing with something a mortal could only understand when death already stalked them. 

“And I thank you,”  Tristitas spoke in that same whisper, coming to stand next to him. Tears were streaming down his face –  _ both  _ their faces. He couldn’t understand it, how the god showed no other sign of caring except for the spill running down his cheeks, just as they ran down his own cheeks, how  _ he  _ thanked  _ them _ , as if they had done him a service. 

… Maybe they had. The thought struck him as lightning even as the god turned to walk back towards the still flaming pyre – just one small thought.

_What if_ they _had been the sacrifice all along?_

A step into the pyre and the god vanished like smoke into the ether, leaving him to stare at the playfully dancing flames. 

_ What had he done? _

There was no end to his sobs as he turned around to take stock of the aftermath. So many lay dead, his second in command among them. He would have thought that if anyone would survive, it was him. He could count three that hadn’t succumbed to the miasma, the carrier among them – the one he had been sure wouldn’t make it. But now he seemed the calmest of them all, silently rocking himself with a vacant, almost  _ peaceful  _ expression on his face. 

This was all because of him. He had been their leader; they had been his followers. They had trusted him to right the wrong in their lives, and instead he had led them to their deaths. 

How could he ever reconcile with this?

He knew the answer. He couldn’t. He would never get over the pain  _ he  _ had brought upon their families, could never wash away the guilt. He would have to live with the memory of this for the rest of his days, and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to stay sane under the weight of it.

But his mate, he had secured his future. Gods filled their promises, and  Tristitas had promised to  _ right their wrong _ . What else could he ask for?

What else did he have to live for? He was no longer needed. One way or another, his mate would have his greatest wish granted, by the intervention of the gods if for no other reason.

The miasma was no longer, thus, the misery had to be his own. And if it was his own, it would never leave.

If it would never leave, he couldn’t carry on like he had. Keening quietly to himself, he reached for the knife that had taken the first life, that of a youngling –  _ innocent _ , even the god had called it – and wrapped his servo around its handle. Its weight was oddly comforting in his grasp. It dried his tears, and that made him all the more certain this was the right thing to do, the right way to go.

Like so many of his followers had already done, he parted his  chestplates and cycled his core open until only the crystal around his spark protected his lifeforce.

He could never live with this, and he didn't need to.

He took aim, closed his optics, and plunged the knife into his spark.


End file.
